Alfonso Ribeiro Suing Fortnite Over Their Use Of The “Carlton Dance”

Today, The Fresh Prince star has thrown his hat in the ring of a growing number of lawsuits against Epic Games. Last month rapper 2 Milly sued the Fortnite developer over their use and direct profits from his viral hip-hop dance the “Milly Rock”. While there has always been criticism over the way video games rebrand emotes, this is a particularly sticky situation due to the profits that Fortnite takes in from direct online purchases of these individual dances. The dance in question is just one of more than 100 dances that Epic Games offers players at a price of about $5/dance.

Robeiro alleges that Fortnite is using the “Carlton Dance” without his permission and unfairly profiting off of his creative expression and likeness. To make matters worse the online gaming giant even goes as far as to call the dance itself the “Fresh”. Ribeiro points out the obvious connection in a portion of the complaint seen below…

The dance that was first available to players on Jan 2, 2018, appears to be an exact copy of the dance made famous by Ribeiro’s character, Carlton Banks. See a side by side comparison below and decide for yourself…

Take-Two Interactive and their gaming franchise NBA2K has also been included in the lawsuit. Ribeiro is requesting his “fair and reasonable profits” from the game and that both companies stop using the dance altogether.

It was also revealed that Ribeiro is currently in the process of copywriting the dance, which may limit the amount of compensation that he can receive.